Match overview

South Africa Cricket beat India Cricket by 51 runs in the T20I at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Mullanpur, on 11 December 2025. Quinton de Kock's 90 off 46 balls drove South Africa to 213/4 from their 20 overs, a total 38 runs above the ground's average first-innings score of 175. India lost 3 wickets inside the powerplay and never recovered, finishing all out for 162. OEG Baartman's 4/24 from 4 overs was the standout bowling performance of the match.

India had won the toss and elected to field, a choice backed by the fact that 71% of toss winners at this ground opt to do the same. South Africa rendered that logic redundant. Their opening phase produced 53 runs for 1 wicket, and a middle-overs passage of 103 runs for 1 wicket built the kind of total that leaves chasing sides with almost no margin for error. By the time India began their reply, they needed to be near-perfect with the bat. Three early wickets saw to it that they were not.

Venue and conditions

Mullanpur has hosted 14 T20 matches, and the numbers point to a surface that rewards batting without being completely one-dimensional. The average first-innings score of 175 and average second-innings score of 165 suggest totals in that range represent par, though South Africa's 213 showed the ceiling is higher when conditions are favourable. The average powerplay score at this ground is 56 runs, meaning both teams' powerplay returns (53 and 51 respectively) were close to that benchmark.

Chases succeed 50% of the time here, which makes it one of the more balanced grounds on the Indian domestic circuit. Death-overs bowling has historically been significant; the average death-overs contribution is 42 runs per innings. South Africa scored 57 in that phase, above average, whilst India managed just 39 for the loss of 5 wickets, a collapse that underlined how quickly a chase can unravel once pressure accumulates at both ends.

How to watch

South Africa vs India T20I series cricket is broadcast in the UK on Sky Sports Cricket, with live streaming available through Sky Go and NOW TV for subscribers. Start times for matches in India typically fall in the mid-afternoon to early evening window for UK viewers, so it is worth checking the Sky Sports schedule for precise UK kickoff times ahead of any follow-up fixtures in this series.

Recent form

South Africa's recent record against India showed a mixed picture coming into this fixture. Their five most recent results in this head-to-head consisted of wins and losses in alternating patterns, with India holding the upper hand across 2025. India arrived at Mullanpur off the back of four wins in their last five meetings against South Africa, including a 101-run victory at Barabati and a 9-wicket win at Vizag earlier in the year.

This result, then, represents a meaningful shift. South Africa's 213 was not a fluke total built on dropped catches or fortune; it came from disciplined batting across all three phases. India's batting unit, which had posted a number of imposing totals in domestic and international cricket through 2025, found Baartman and the South Africa attack in a different mood altogether. The two sides' overall head-to-head stands at 60 wins to India and 50 to South Africa from 118 meetings, but form at any given moment can override long-run numbers quickly. The next fixture between these sides will show whether South Africa can back this result up or whether India's usual home dominance reasserts itself.